


Illuminating Worlds and Wastes Alike

by Poedhamerons



Series: Stars [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Pining!Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poedhamerons/pseuds/Poedhamerons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a space of time between Sherlock dying and having to pluck apart the spider's web. Sherlock spends it the only way he knows how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illuminating Worlds and Wastes Alike

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of 2

Sherlock Holmes has always loved the idea of stars. Swirling masses of light and pure energy and particles of space that illuminate worlds and wastes alike.  When he feels like he’s drifting, ideas floating along lazily, an ocean of thoughts with nothing but a raft to cling to, he contemplates the idea of being an astronaut, of touching stars that hang suspended above his head, their five cartoonish points reaching out, as if alive.

Sherlock Holmes has always loved the idea of stars.

*

The first time Sherlock sees John is precisely one week, eleven hours, fifty-two minutes, and four seconds after he died. Sherlock smiles at John through a guise of glasses and rumpled, ginger hair. His clothes, too, are horrendous, dark and baggy when they used to be bright. Dirt has changed all but their chemical composition, winding its way into the creases and folds of the clothing, and Sherlock stands it all for a glimpse of John tossing a kind coin into his holey felt hat. Sherlock cradles the hat to his chest, thanking this man, this stranger profusely, and John’s smile is brief and pained before he leaves, turning the other way and not looking back.

Sherlock sheds his clothes dramatically four blocks down, pulling them off in anger as passerby continue on without a glance at the strange man in an alley, dropping a pile of clothes in a dumpster as if shedding another skin, another life.

*

At night, he concocts storylines. He plucks names and faces from the air, spinning tales from nothing and creating personas of people who have never and will never exist. He becomes them, learns their tics and traits. He pictures scenarios with John, plots out every single possible occurrence and how his creation, his Frankenstein’s monster of character traits, would react. He is jealous when he imagines John falling in love with them.

*

The second time Sherlock sees John, it is the following day in another part of town, and he sees recognition bloom in John’s eyes, a moment of excitement thrumming through his soldier’s blood that is shut down immediately by the cold, harsh reality that is the fact that Sherlock is _dead._

Sherlock smiles politely at John, who brushes past him brusquely, and Sherlock is left alone again, swearing softly to himself as a pitying flower shop salesman holds out a single rose in condolence.

*

There is a number that counts down in Sherlock’s mind, a bomb that is to explode in less than a week. It will be quiet when it goes off. There is a plane that awaits his body in an airport and Sherlock can feel its presence like walls, closing in on him and closing him off. They’re surrounding him, moving ever closer, closer, closer, until he will be all but trapped within, trapped without John, brave John who would die alongside him on this battlefield in a heartbeat.

It’s selfish, Sherlock thinks, to want John to die at his side.

*

The third time Sherlock sees John, he is on the wrong side of the street and almost gets hit by a car as he runs after him. John doesn’t see him, but Mycroft texts him later that day.

_> This is unhealthy, Sherlock._

_> Piss off, Mycroft._

_> Four days._

*

Sherlock tells himself that he is doing an experiment. He whispers hypotheses into his pillow and screams data to the wind. He places contact lenses in his eyes and drags a ratty comb through wigs. He practices accents and acting meek and cowardly. The name John dances upon his lips as an aftertaste that he cannot rid himself of.

*

It’s nighttime when Sherlock finds himself at the door, and for all that his life is culminating to this point, it feels painfully normal. He twists the handle and lets himself in without a second thought, and ascends the stairs reverently, memories flitting through his head like stars. They glow with the picturesque style of vignettes and then they condense into swirling black holes with harsh questions, ones that whisper darkly in his ear. _Will he hate me? Will he turn away? Will he say no?_

Sherlock opens the door.

John is upstairs, trying to sleep though he will have heard the creaking stairs. He wouldn’t have slept anyway, he has barely slept since...

The creaking noise from above means that he has decided to come down. In the darkness of 221B Baker Street, with only starlight to give him form, Sherlock stills, watching the stairs until the lights flicker on, and a figure stands upon the last step, frozen in place.

“Hello,” Sherlock says. “I need to ask you a question.”

*


End file.
